Almost a dozen Greek Australians receive 2026 King’s Birthday Honours
Across Australia many Hellenes have been recognised for their contributions to Australia
The Governor-General has announced 2026 King’s Birthday Honours and Awards for 949 Australians, including awards in the Order of Australia (General and Military Divisions), meritorious awards and recognition for distinguished and conspicuous service.
At least 11 of them are of Hellenic background, based on our surname search, just around the same amount as last year.
Recipients will attend ceremonies at the Government House in their respective state or territory in coming months to receive the insignia of their award.
The Very Reverend Dr John Chryssavgis.
Member of the Order of Australia (AM)
The Very Reverend Dr John Chryssavgis
For significant service to the Orthodox Christian Church, to education, and to advancing ecological awareness.
Father Chryssavgis is the Archdeacon of the Ecumenical Throne, a Professor of Theology at Holy Cross School of Theology (Boston) and Executive Director at Huffington Ecumenical Institute (Boston).
He studied at Athens and Oxford and is also an author of books on Orthodox thought and spirituality, as well as on ecological theology and the role of the church in the public square.
Born in Adelaide and raised in Sydney, he moved to the United States in 1995.
“It is undoubtedly a humbling honour from the highest authority of my country of birth,” he told Neos Kosmos.
“I immediately thought of my parents, Fr. Miltiades (from Patras, Greece) and Alkistis (from Limassol, Cyprus), who migrated to Australia in the 1950s.”
The recognition comes after his father received the same award a few years ago.
“I am certain that, in his eyes as well as in the heart of my late mother, this honour constitutes a commemoration, commendation, and confirmation of the exceptional efforts of Greeks to settle in and contribute to the extraordinary land that welcomed them.”
He added that it means a lot to him that his efforts in establishing St. Andrew’s Theological College in Sydney are especially acknowledged and thanked the late Archbishop Stylianos and Archbishop Makarios.
Marika Calfas.
Marika Calfas
For significant service to the transport and shipping industry, to logistics, and to infrastructure.
Calfas is the CEO of NSW Ports, which is responsible for the management of the commercial ports of Port Botany and Port Kembla and two rail intermodal terminals.
Previous awards include a Progress Award, PIANC Australia and New Zealand in 2022, a Women’s Achievement in Infrastructure Award, National Infrastructure Awards, Infrastructure Partnerships Australia in 2018, and a Judy Raper Award for Leadership, Women in Engineering Awards, University of NSW in 2018.
“It is an honour to be recognised for the contribution I have made to the industry however I see this as an opportunity to share with the public the importance of our ports and freight sector and the wonderful and diverse careers that can be achieved in this industry, including for women,” Calfas, who has roots in Kastellorizo, said.
“I hope it encourages people to explore careers in the ports and freight sector.
“It is also an opportunity to show how there are a wide variety of ways in which individuals from within the community can make a difference in society.”
Professor Matthaios Santamouris.
Professor Matthaios Santamouris
For significant service to architecture, to energy, and to environmental quality.
Born in Athens to parents from Tinos and Crete, Santamouris is a Distinguished Professor Anita Lawrence Chair of High Performance Architecture at UNSW.
He has an Honorary PhD from the University of Cyprus, has received a Lifetime Award with PLEA Organisation and a Lifetime Australian Sustainability Award.
He has also served on various scientific bodies and committees including for the United Nations, Hong Kong and Canada.
He said he felt deeply honoured and genuinely humbled to be recognised with the honour.
“It came as a surprise, and my immediate reaction was one of gratitude—both for the recognition itself and for the opportunity to have contributed, over many years, to work that I care deeply about.”
He does not view it as an individual achievement alone but a collective effort of colleagues, collaborators, students, and institutions.
“At a more personal level, I experienced a strong sense of responsibility accompanying the recognition. Such an honour reinforces the importance of continuing to contribute thoughtfully and with integrity, particularly in addressing the complex and pressing challenges that define our time.
“Finally, I see this honour as an opportunity—not just to reflect on past efforts, but to renew my commitment to future contributions. In that respect, the recognition is not an endpoint, but rather a reminder of the continuing responsibility to make a positive and lasting contribution.”
Professor Peter Parashos. Photo: ResearchGate
Professor Peter Parashos
For significant service to dentistry, particularly endodontology, and to tertiary education.
Notably Prof. Parashos was a Chair and Professor of Endodontics at the Melbourne Dental School (Melbourne Uni) from 2012-2021.
Other positions he held at Melbourne Uni include Head of Restorative Dentistry, Convenor; Postgraduate Endodontics, Head of Endodontics, Associate Professor and was part of the faculty.
He been a member of Australian Society of Endodontology Inc since 1981, having served as president, and as treasurer at state and federal level.
Parashos has also held editorial positions with the Australian Endodontic Journal (formerly Australian Endodontic Newsletter, Dental Traumatology, Brazilian Dental Journal and Australian Endodontic Journal.
He is a senior consultant at the Royal Dental Hospital Melbourne (since 2005) and is a Private Specialist Endodontic Practitioner, since 1989.
This is just the latest award and recognition, which he has had many of over the years.
Rachel Condos-Fields.
Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM)
Rachel Marie Condos-Fields
For service to youth, and to the community.
Condos-Fields is the CEO & Founder of WattleNest (connects athletes with business) and current Non-Executive Director of World Youth International and Stanwell Corporation.
She said her first reaction to the recognition was one of surprise.
“I have never done this work seeking recognition; the focus has always been on the people, communities and causes I have been privileged to support,” she said.
“To be acknowledged in this way is an incredible honour and one I am immensely grateful for.”
With World Youth International she has been a volunteer and Ambassador to Nepal since 1999.
She helped with a major fundraiser in 2015-16, Help U Help Nepal Earthquake Relief, and in 2022 a Boarding Centre in Nepal was named in her honour.
Condos-Fields said the award has also prompted a great deal of reflection.
Rachel Condos-fields in 1999 building a sandpit at the International School of Nepal.
“I think back to my journey as a 17-year-old travelling to Nepal for the first time, the lessons learned through decades of community service, and the many remarkable people who have shaped and influenced my life along the way,” she said.
“This recognition belongs as much to them as it does to me.”
Other awards include the Global Women Changing the World Award presented in London in 2024 and was named in the Top 100 Power List – Most Influential Women in Australian Sport in 2024.
Her roots in Greece are from the island of Symi where just this year her great, great pappou was honoured with a statue at the harbour. He, Captain Dimitrios Kontos, was a sponge diver.
In her reflections, she points to her yiayia.
“She was a true community champion who believed deeply in helping others and giving back wherever she could,” she said.
“I know she would be incredibly proud to see me receive this honour, and that brings me enormous comfort and joy.
“Her example taught me that success is not measured by what we achieve for ourselves, but by the difference we make in the lives of others.”
Peter Dourios.
Peter Dourios
For service to the Greek community of Melbourne.
The award acknowledges decades of community involvement, including his long-standing leadership of the Australian Greek Ex-Servicemen’s Association, where he served as president from 1996 until 2025, as well as his volunteer work with Theodora’s Cheerful Givers and his social organising role at 18 Bent Street Northcote and Saint George Orthodox Church.
His contribution also extends to South Melbourne Football Club, where he served as former president of the Juniors and as a committee member from 1973 to 1986.
Speaking to Neos Kosmos, Dourios said the honour does not belong to him alone, but to the wider Greek community.
Reflecting on more than five decades of voluntary service, from his early involvement with Hellas juniors to his leadership within the Greek ex-servicemen’s association, he stressed that community work is never the effort of one person alone.
“Strength is in unity,” he said, acknowledging the many men and women who worked beside him over the years.
He paid particular tribute to his wife, Vasiliki, for her unwavering support throughout a life shaped by service.
His message to younger generations is direct and heartfelt: become involved, join community organisations, and help keep the Greek name present and strong wherever Hellenism lives.
Peter Andrinopoulos.
Panagiotis (Peter) Andrinopoulos
For service to the Greek community of Melbourne.
Andrinopoulos is a coordinator with PRONIA, board member of the Greek Orthodox Community of Melbourne and Victoria, Antipodes Festival and The Society of Kalamta ’23 March’ Brotherhood.
He’s worked with the Greek Orthodox Community of Oakleigh and Districts, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, Victoria, National Centre for Hellenic Studies and Research, EKEME, La Trobe University, NUGAS and Australian Hellenic Memorial.
He also authored the Greek Women of Influence 1821-2021.
He told Neos Kosmos he is very honoured and proud to the recognition.
“The most rewarding part of in my working life is helping people,” he said. “That’s what I’ve done all my life.”
“I’ve been working in the aged care area with PRONIA, where I’m a coordinator in their aged care services. And again, it’s helping our elders to gain the services they need.”
He too is calling for younger people to get involved with community organisations.
“I think it’s important to support all these organisations, and especially encourage the younger people,” he said.
“It’s not about us older people anymore, it’s about encouraging younger people to be actively involved to whatever degree they can. No one should question the degree, just whatever degree they can or they want to.
“It’d be really great to see more younger people involved.”
Esta Paschalidis-Chilas.
Ghestimani Paschalidis-Chilas
For service to the multicultural community of New South Wales.
Paschalidis-Chias is a founder, CEO, community leader, social worker and volunteer who has been working in social services since graduating from UNSW in 1991.
In her volunteering roles, she works to advance her Pontian Hellenic heritage, as Vice President of Pontixeniteas NSW and Co-Secretary of the Federation of Pontian Associations of Australia.
She has worked in local council, for refugee councils, school associations and much more.
“My career allows me to connect with people from diverse backgrounds, many of whom have been newcomers to Australia,” she said.
“Assisting people to settle well in Australia means a lot to me personally too, especially being a child of post-war migrants from Greece.”
Her paternal grandparents Thanasis & Ghestimani, were forced to flee Pontos and settle in Greece as refugees who had lost family members. They settled in Aloro, N.Pella in Makedonia.
Pontian Association of NSW.
Her mother Evanthia and maternal grandparents, Andrea and Irini Kontrafouris are from the town of Neapolis in Lakonia.
Both her personal and professional journeys are connected to her passion in seeing people realise their aspirations and to both embrace and be embraced by the community they live.
As CEO of Canterbury City Community Centre (4Cs), she leads a team whose work uplifts people and communities, it provides opportunities to reduce social isolation and creates cultural exchange.
“Everyday I see that, with the right supports and opportunities, a person like me, a first-generation Australian born woman, can make an active contribution to our society,” she said.
“My life of service has been inspired by my late father’s tenacity and community activism and by my mother’s resilience and optimism.
“I also beared witness to many migrant warrior women who carved out a path for the next generation of women, like me.
“They are women who came to Australia with nothing and built lives, often lonely and hard but with hope and grace.”
She hopes it inspires future generations to live in service.
Matthew Vertzonis.
Matthew Vertzonis CSM RFD
For service to veterans and their families.
Vertzonis, now retired from the ADF, joined the Australian Army while at Uni; most service was as a Reservist, but he did do some full-time service, including a short period of operational service in the Solomon Islands.
After Uni, he worked in the corporate world with national and international companies; senior Human Resource and General Management roles; forming his own consultancy group in 2001, which he retired from in 2012.
Currently he is the Secretary of the Chatswood RSL sub-Branch in Sydney.
“Post retirement, I wanted to give something back to the community; with a background of 46 years in the ADF, supporting veterans through the RSL was an easy decision to make,” he said.
“I was delighted to be advised that I was to receive an award; however, I am only one of many RSL members that assist veterans and their families.
“Many of these members are just as deserving of this award.”
He said being awarded the OAM helps raise awareness in the wider community of the work they all do within the veteran community.
“We know what veterans, and their families, have done for the country,” he added.
“Whether we actually served with them at a particular time, they wore Australia’s uniform and were prepared to put themselves in harm’s way, therefore they are all our mates.
“Military service teaches you that you rely on your mates, and they rely on you, it is a team effort – it’s just what we do, and that continues after we serve.”
Vertzonis and his brother were born in Alexandria to Chris and Marika. They moved to Australia in 1954, when he was three.
His paternal grandparents came from the Kavala area of mainland Greece and the island of Chios, while his maternal grandparents came from the islands of Lemnos and Chios.
“Migrating to Australia on Greek passports, Australian officials could not understand why I was not ‘Egyptian’,” he said.
“I lost count of how many times I needed to give a brief history lesson about Alexandria being named after Alexander the Great, and that it had the largest Greek population outside of Greece until Melbourne took over that title.”
Vertzonis’s father served with the Royal Hellenic Navy, an uncle in the Hellenic Army, another uncle in the Hellenic Air Force and his older brother served Australia in South Vietnam in the late 1960’s.
“With that background, it is no surprise that I later enlisted in the Australian Army,” Vertzonis said.
One time when Vertzonis and his wife Lorraine decided to visit Athens (for the first time since he was a baby) his dad was concerned authorities would make him do his Greek National Service.
“As a Lieutenant Colonel in the Australian Army at the time (and probably over-age in any case) I told him that this was very unlikely. I’m not sure that he was really convinced with my assurances,” he said.
Con Berbatis.
Dr Constantine George Berbatis
For service to the community of Perth.
Berbatis is a property developer and a Doctor of Philosophy, Master of Science with a Bachelor of Pharmacy and of Science. He is a Fellow of the Pharmacy Society Western Australia.
Dr Berbatis has served in a number of roles in Greek Australian communities across the nation and is a leader in community youth sport, and in student and in student bodies. He underwrote and managed the creation of the George and Despina Berbatis Memorial Gymnasium at St Andrews Independent School in Dianella in honour of his parents.
“I’m delighted and honoured,” he said.
“I regard it as a recognition of the hard work, long continuous work I’ve done over the years.
“I’m 80 years old now, it’ll be a treasure for the rest of my life.”
The Greek organisations he’s been involved with include the Hellenic Community of Western Australia as a trustee and committee member, a benefactor for The Hellenic Initiative Australia, President and Life Member with Hellenic Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Western, a number of roles within Hellenic Council of Western Australia and the Hellenic Youth Association, where he was President in the1960s, a founding member of National Union of Greek Australian Students (NUGAS) and is a Life Member.
“My involvement with the Greek community became localised, then interstate, then international,” he said.
“I regard myself as a person of wide Greek involvement, Pan-Hellenic involvement.”
Andrew Satsias. Photo: LinkedIn
Andrew Peter Satsias
For service to the community of Canberra.
A lawyer, Satsias is the Secretary and Director of Hellenic Club of Canberra. He is also a former president and vice-president of the club.
He is also the Board Liaison for the Greek Orthodox Community and Church of Canberra and District as well as the Greek Language School of Canberra.
He is a life member for the former.
Satsias is the Chair of Independent Liquor Retailers and was Deputy President of Racing Appeals Tribunal, ACT Gambling and Racing Commission from 2015-2024.
He’s admitted as Barrister and Solicitor at the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory since 1996.
If you are of Hellenic heritage and have received King’s Birthday Honours for 2026 and are missing from our list, let us know at editor@neoskosmos.com.au
